BitConnect victim who lost $33,000 takes over Indonesian event

In an attempt to portray BitConnect victims filing lawsuits against the company as “crybaby ass motherfuckers“, top US investor Trevon James claimed investors elsewhere in the world are fine with collectively losing millions of dollars.

None of the other countries that were in BitConnect, I don’t hear a peep out of them crying or anything.

You go look at a Vietnam video, they still having BitConnect conferences. They still throwing them shits.

(Americans are) a bunch of fucking pussies man.

While I can’t speak to Vietnam, in neighboring Indonesia footage of a BitConnect event held on January 28th directly contradicts James’ assertion.

Turns out victims anywhere in the world aren’t happy about being scammed in a Ponzi scheme. Who knew?

In attendance at the Jakarta, Indonesia event is our host, Andrew. Andrew claims to have invested and lost money in BitConnect but doesn’t reveal how much.

In Indonesia the top two promoters appear to be someone who goes by “Mr. Santoso” (credited as Director of BitConnect Indonesia) and Yuris Prasetya (cited as Development Director and a former OneCoin Ponzi scammer).

As opposed to events in the past where the lending investment opportunity was heavily pushed, the January 28th event started off as somewhat of a muted affair.

“Some guy” started the event by explaining to investors with basic “cryptocurrency education”.

As Andrew states, “that’s not what (the investors were) there for”.

[5:34] Half of the people there are people like me.

Who want answers, what happened to our investment, who are angry, who are upset, no communication, we are quite pissed off.

Andrew claims the “other half” in attendance were rabidly supportive of BitConnect.

[6:01] Whenever the presenters (made) claims like, “You know what guys, BitConnect’s gonna climb back up, there’s low supply, we have plans, it’s gonna get up to $1000 by the end of the year,” those people (were) cheering and clapping.

After “some guy” was done wasting everybody’s time, Yuris Prasetya took to the stage to talk about staking BCC.

For those unfamiliar with the concept of staking, within the context of BitConnect affiliates holding worthless BCC points are rewarded with more worthless points the longer they hold onto their worthless points.

A short while into Prasetya’s presentation, an audience member stood up and began shouting “scam!”.

[6:59] So what happened was this gentleman in the audience started yelling, “scam! give me back my money!”

Prasetya refused to acknowledge the man’s claims and instead stuck to the “I’m explaining about staking” script.

One of Prasetya’s goons then engages the man. A lone event security officer than approaches him and gestures towards the exit.

Moments later an eight to twelve-man goon squad move in and surround the elderly man.

A physical alteration between the man and the twelve or so goons surrounding him breaks out.

As the goons wrestle the man, other audience members in attendance start shouting “let him talk!”

The goons continue to wrestle with the man for a few moments, before forcefully escorting him out.

Outnumbered at least fifteen to one by this point, the elderly man doesn’t put up much of a struggle.

Although a number of audience members can be seen filming the incident, nobody gets up to assist. Chants of “let him speak” however continue to ring out.

Feeling empowered by those in the audience cheering him on, the man pushes through security and makes for the stage, clapping as he walks down the center-aisle.

This time the goons step aside as the man approaches.

Rather than stay to address the man’s concerns, Yuris Prasetya quietly slinks off-stage as the man grabs a mic and addresses the audience.

Whatever agenda BitConnect’s top Indonesian promoters had is thrown out of the window, as the man is allowed to speak unhindered at length.

[10:54] So he’s complaining (about) his upline. His upline doesn’t reply (to) anything on WhatsApp. And he told to take his complaints here (the event).

He and his friends got in for $30,000 … three days (before BitConnect collapsed).

Three days he got in (and then BitConnect’s) website crashed.

(He says), “I was guaranteed my money will be there.

I lost $33,000 in three days. I want my money back! It’s not fair!

This is not like trading. If I trade and make a loss, that’s OK. Here I just deposited money.

I’m going to hold you accountable.

I am angry because I feel I got cheated and I got scammed.

Audience members applaud as the man finishes his speech.

Yuris Prasetya then slinks back onto the scene and begins to address the audience.

As a top investor, it is assumed Prasetya made money in BitConnect.

Yet despite this key difference Prasetya states he’s “in the same boat” as victims who lost tens of thousands of dollars.

[16:14] BitConnect is anonymous, unknown. Just like bitcoin, you don’t know who did it.

We made a company called BitConnect here in Indonesia, but it’s only for education. We only give information.

Prasetya goes on to claim that BitConnect Indonesia has to pretend it only offers education after he was contacted by the authorities.

He states that he as 3000 BCC points, and commands applause from supporters after declaring he hasn’t sold any of them.

Tellingly, Prasetya doesn’t address or reveal how much he made in BitConnect referral commissions.

After rambling on about how hard done by he is as one of Indonesia’s top BitConnect investors, the upline of the elderly man from the start of the video takes to the stage.

Declaring he’s “just an upline”, the man refuses to take any responsibility for losses of those he convinced to join BitConnect.

When asked “where the money is” and confronted with his promise of returning money within four to eight months and $33,000 in losses, the upline responds by shrugging it off with a laugh.

After five or so minutes of two-and-fro with muted applause, the stand-off ends and the elderly victim retreats to the back of the venue.

According to Andrew, shortly after the confrontation the event continued in a “private room”.

In the private room door prizes and motorcycles were handed out to victims admitted.

Sitting at the head of the room sat Prasetya and other top Indonesian investors.

One of the investors, Andrew claims, is a Major in the Indonesian military who invested over $100,000. The Major also purportedly convinced other Indonesian military officers to collectively invest “millions and millions” of dollars.

Prasetya and his group attempted to reassure their victims that, through staking and limited supply, BCC’s value would eventually rise.

Andrew and other investors disagreed.

[38:01] Basically we agreed that whatever they were planning to bring BCC up, to go ahead with BitConnect exchange, we told them it’s not gonna happen.

It’s not gonna happen. Confidence is at an all-time low.

You didn’t do a good job. You messed up the returns, a lot of people got screwed, it was one-sided (and) we’re not happy.

Whatever you’re planning, it’s not gonna work.

So we said, “You as our voice … if there’s still good-will, please tell the (BitConnect) development team they have to sort this out.

And we don’t like what they’ve proposed. We don’t like you have to wait for months. We don’t like that at all.

Speaking on behalf of the assembled top Indonesian uplines, Mr. Santoso asked for ten days to come up with answers.

[40:52] They will voice our concerns to the development team and have answers within ten days.

That’s what Mr. Santoso will do on behalf of all of us.

He’ll represent us, (because) only he can communicate with the development team.

So what we did was we signed … we asked for ID and made a statement, a written statement from him, signed, saying … and he will post us what’s going to happen.

Andrew is hopeful that he will receive “good news” within ten days.

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As someone who’s watched countless Ponzi schemes implode to the same tune over the years, personally I wouldn’t be holding my breath.

Time wasted just gives those who ran the show longer to distance themselves from their victims.